Ghouls: the end of an era.

Approaching this post is hard. In a lot of ways it should be easy because there is simply so much I could say. So many stories, so many places, so many people. The band has been the most significant part of the last 10 years of my life.

Madness.

This weekend just gone, we capped it all off with a final show. “One last show to rule them all.” The show itself, the entire day in fact, may have been one of the best of my entire life. It wasn’t just a terrific show and a celebration of our achievements, but there was a full room of people, all of which were significant to me. People from all over the world that I share a story with, people from different eras of my life and varying stages of my youth. It was surreal, imagine having everyone who was ever significant to you and putting them all in the same room. Wow, I was so overwhelmed in emotion that I was sort of left speechless. My brain couldn’t quite work out whether it was real or not.

The show gave me a high that I am now sat wondering if I’ll ever be able to feel again. Honestly, I’ve ran marathons, climbed mountains, stood inform of thousands of people but the moment I stood up on that stage I was tingling and shaking with nothing but adrenaline and emotion. It was simply incredible. Thank you to all of you that were there.

I’m sure I will write many blog posts about various stories of my time in Ghouls but there’s simply too much to put down in one measly post. I do actually intend to write a book of our adventures to put them down in writing and give some people insight to some of the scenarios we found ourselves in. From staying in the ghetto’s of Philadelphia to penthouse hotel suites in Brisbane, from playing in an underground bunker in Aachen, Germany to playing Brixton Academy in London, from piling into a Vauxhall Astra Estate to a Dodge Grande Caravan with tinted windows and a body kit – we’ve certainly lived through some experiences that are worth hearing about. We owe it all to this community that somehow formed around our music, most of which were all in one room on Saturday evening.

Pure madness.

I guess I’ll use the end of this post to explain the reason behind the end a little bit, and then maybe leave you with some of the incredible photos from Saturday evening.

Ghouls have always been a DIY band. I guess it wasn’t really a choice we made but once we found ourselves on the DIY circuit we fell in love with it and wanted to stay. The DIY touring circuit is a place full of passion and love, it’s not always pretty but its adventurous and free of ego. It certainly makes for ups and downs but in a good way. The hardest part of being a part of the DIY circuit is it’s quite hard to sustain. Touring isn’t lucrative and you often have to see it more like going on holiday, where you’ll likely be spending money over making any back. This never bothered the members of Ghouls, the love was too great. It definitely meant some skimping and scraping at times but those were the times that lead to the good stories.

When it came to late last year we took some time off and all had a bit of thinking time. Since the release of our album – RUN, there’s been 2 albums worth of material written. None of which has ever been released, some of it exists in demo form and if anyone would like to hear those demos then let me know and I’ll send them your way. One of the biggest shames is that we didn’t release more material. Our latest release was the Internet Famous and Be singles, both of which are good songs but they hold less personal meaning to me than some of the others. The logistics of writing and recording an album are quite hard to organise, the problem with Ghouls is that was always where we found it hard to organise ourselves. An album is a costly matter too and being a DIY band, it means there is no label loan or funding. I guess we had to weigh up whether putting all the time, money and effort into another album was really worth it. I suppose we decided that perhaps we couldn’t do it.

We met in late February of this year to discuss the future and what was best for us as individuals and the band. The issue we found ourselves facing was that we could either carry on as we were but run the risk of burning out, slowly dying out and eventually fading into nothingness without ever having a big farewell finale or we just decide to put a cap on it and go out with a bang. It seemed we had an obvious choice.

Gig hair is the best hair.

In 2018 I sort of fell out of love with it in someways but as we got further and further into the time away, my love grew back. Now I find myself in the odd position of having found the love again but the band has now ended. Still, my time perhaps has been and gone and it’s time for someone else to have their chance. I’m so glad the band got to do everything we did, it gave me an education and shaped me into who I am today.

Shhhh we might be on stage again, who knows?

Thank you to absolutely everyone who was involved in the band, from the people who just listened every now and then to the people who let us stay in their homes. I owe you all.

All the love and more.
BG